AN INSECT ENEMY OF COTTON AND CORN. 57 



places, with the stems of young- cotton plants as second choice, egg 

 punctures and eggs were found also in the twigs of pecan trees, fruit 

 trees of various kinds, cottonwood, sweet gum, honey locust, coffee 

 bean, wild cherry, and in practically every variety of shrub or weed- 

 like plant in or around the infested fields. Mr. Hardy found punc- 

 tures and eggs in abundance in the boards of a roof covering a " cot- 

 ton-seed house " in one of the infested fields. It is said in the infested 

 neighborhood that when the laborers leave tools in the field while 

 gone to dinner, the cicadas puncture the hoe handles so liberally that 

 it is necessary to sandpaper the latter before thej^ can again be used. 

 We have not yet verified the existence of such an interesting habit 

 on the part of the insect, although it is not entirely outside the 

 realm of possibilities, for between barn roofs and hoe handles as host 

 plants there does not aj^pear to be any great difference. 



In the roof of the shed-like building referred to, Mr. Hard}^ found 

 old punctures, containing no eggs, evidently made the previous season, 

 and this may possibly point toward one year as being the develop- 

 mental period of the insect. 



The egg is white, approximately cylindrical, bluntly rounded at 

 the ends, and has its greatest width a little nearer one end than the 

 other. The egg is slightl}^ conformable to the cavity in which it is 

 placed and is sometimes permanently distorted by unequal pressure 

 against the surrounding tissues or against other eggs in the same 

 cavity. In plants of a woody nature, having relatively tough bark, 

 the upper end of the egg (next to the epidermis of the plant) was 

 usually noticed to be more bluntly pointed than the lower. Eggs 

 taken from punctures in corn tassels averaged 2 mm. in length by f 

 mm. in diameter. Within the puncture the eggs (fig. 2, h) are ar- 

 ranged side by side, not always parallel with each other, and usually 

 extending downward at an angle of about 45 degrees with the sur- 

 face of the stem in which they are placed. The egg punctures pre- 

 sent an outward appearance not unlike those made by (JJ can thus 

 niveus De G. The puncture is rounded at its upper extremity and is 

 pointed at the lower end. Punctures in young and tender cotton 

 stems measured from 1^ to 2 mm. in length by about i mm. in width. 



In cotton stems the punctures were not, as a usual thing, placed 

 directly in a vertical line, but were arranged spirally, each puncture 

 being placed a little to one side of the one next above it. 



The number of eggs inserted through each puncture seems to be 

 governed largely by the resistance offered by the tissue through which 

 the ovipositor must be forced. Punctures in cotton stems contained 

 from 3 to 5 eggs each, those in corn from 4 to 8, while in a weed hav- 

 ing a hollow stem 75 eggs were found, all of which had been inserted 

 through a single puncture. 



